An absolutely spectacular thing happened on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday.
After host David Gregory and his liberal panelists talked about Martin Luther King Jr's dream having not yet been realized, and how tough it is for minorities to succeed in America, Puerto Rican immigrant Congressman Raul Labrador (R-Id.) scolded them all saying, "It saddens me actually to hear some of the things that I'm hearing here, because I think the American dream is alive...What I've been hearing from your panelists is not a message of hope. It's a message of despair" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
REPRESENTATIVE RAUL LABRADOR (R-IDAHO): It saddens me actually to hear some of the things that I'm hearing here, because I think the American dream is alive. I was born four years after the March on Washington. I was born to a single mother who lost her job because she got pregnant by me, who decided to give me life. But the most important thing that she decided is that she was going to give me a good life.
I didn't go to military school when I was a young man because my mother was rich. I went to military school because she decided to sacrifice. She decided to go without some things in her life so she could put me in a military school. Then she couldn't afford that anymore, so she put me in another private school, and eventually, when she wanted to move to the mainland, she decided to put me in a bilingual school because she thought that the only way I would be successful in life is by gaining an education, by being better educated, by learning English.
I remember when we moved to the United States, she told me something that was so significant in my life. She said, "In private, we can speak Spanish. But when you're in public, you need to speak English because I want you to speak English to the best of your ability." These are things that she thought about.
I spent the last 24 hours, I watched Martin Luther King's speech three times over the last 24 hours. And it was fantastic. And the rhetoric that he used, the words that he used, and the message that he used was the message of hope. And unfortunately, what I've been hearing from your panelists is not a message of hope. It's a message of despair. And I think we need our leadership to actually be more hopeful.
A few minutes later he added:
LABRADOR: We're still the greatest nation on the earth. If you listen to what Martin Luther King talked about, he talked about making sure that we were not bitter about what was happening in America, but that we had hope. It was a beautiful speech. And I think that the leadership, or the African American leadership needs to start thinking about that hope that Martin Luther King gave us instead of trying to get the community to think that everything is hopeless and without a future. I think when we tell our young people that in America they cannot succeed anymore, you will see more and more young people not succeeding. And what we need to do is tell them that they can succeed.
Absoflippinglutely!
When are liberals going to learn that the more you tell people they can't, the more they won't?
What makes a good supervisor, manager, coach, or parent is the ability to encourage others to perform beyond their expectations.
Unfortunately, the left and their media minions would rather spend their time discussing all the so-called hurdles folks have to get over to be successful, and how the game is rigged against them thereby making it almost impossible for them to be so.
And they wonder why so many fail.
Maybe if these leftists read a few books or took some courses on effective mentoring and coaching skills, they'd better understand not only why so many are failing in our nation, but also that they are enabling such failure.
For the record, the despairists on the panel were New York Times columnist David Brooks, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, celebrated race-baiter Al Sharpton, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Sheryl WuDunn.
As one can see from the transcript and video, combined they were no match for Labrador.
Bravo, Congressman! Bravo!
